MILFORD -- A deer in the headlights is bad enough, but a fawn in a swimming pool presented its own challenges to rescuers Tuesday.

The 30-pound baby deer had fallen into an abandoned, in-ground pool in an overgrown yard on the west side of the city, and was scrambling to get out when firefighters and animal control officers arrived.

"It was scared so of course it flailed a little,'' said Rick George, the city's animal warden. "But we were able to corral it and lift it out.''

The fawn was unharmed and no one was hit by little flying hooves, he said. The baby deer spent some time in an enclosure at the city's animal shelter at Silver Sands State Park, while officers looked for its mother.

The pool enclosure had collapsed, Fire Capt. Kyle Brotherton said, and the deer was unable to climb out. Brotherton said the animal was later taken to an animal rehabilitation center in Enfield as a precaution.

For George, the veteran animal control director, it was another day on the job. George was part of an elaborate effort last year to corral an errant calf that had taken a liking to a stand of trees in a residential neighborhood, and he has pulled many possums from under porches.

Last month he and firefighters teamed up to save a heron that had become entangled in a tree.

Several years ago, a live turkey that fell from a poultry truck here in November became a lucky bird when George and his staff granted it sanctuary at the East Broadway shelter.

Not all such stories end happily, the animal control director said. Last month he helped to rescue another fawn whose mother had been killed on the Wilbur Cross Parkway.

"Just because you see a fawn in your yard doesn't mean that the mother isn't around,'' George said. "The best thing to do is to leave it alone and call us.''